Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Give Indyk a break!

US peace envoy Martin Indyk, while deserving of criticism
for his past failures, will not make or break negotiations between Israel and
Palestine.

Since being tapped last week as John Kerry’s special
envoy for Middle East peace, Martin Indyk, the long-time Middle East analyst,
former US ambassador to Israel, and former peace process negotiator has been
the target of a barrage of criticism.

Steve Walt chimed in early against Indyk, tweeting, “Appointing
Indyk as IP mediator is like hiring [Bernie] Madoff to run your pension. He had
8 years to do a deal in the 90s and failed.”

Philip Weiss seriously questioned Indyk’s fairness,
noting that Indyk previously worked for AIPAC, helped launch WINEP (which Weiss
calls an AIPAC-aligned think-tank), and the suspicion he aroused over his
commitment to Israeli settlements during his last stint as US peace mediator.

AP correspondent Matt Lee grilled State Department
spokesperson Jen Psaki about Indyk’s appointment. Lee asked why, given Indyk’s
more than a decade of peace process failures and the importance of reaching a
deal, the administration chose a tired,
washed-up guy like Indyk instead of going with some “new blood,” as Lee
called it.

Indyk has not exactly inspired confidence in the
negotiations, tweeting “this is not the end…not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

It’s not that the criticism of Indyk isn’t fair – it certainly
all is, especially questions about his impartiality to mediate a dispute
between Israel and Palestine. The real question that keeps arising in my mind
as I read yet another blog post or article full of criticism for Indyk is, “Does
it actually matter?”

No, it doesn’t. Indyk did indeed fail for 8 years to
achieve a peace agreement in the 90s, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu have failed to achieve peace for far longer
than 8 years. Tzipi Livni and Saeb Erekat have been involved in abysmal peace
process failures for the better part of a decade as well. It’s just a simple
fact that everyone involved, especially those appointed by the parties
themselves, are grizzled veterans pushing handcarts of baggage into the
negotiating room. The US choosing a spritely, passionate “new blood” mediator
is not going to make or break these talks.

President Obama appointed George Mitchell in advance of
the 2009 peace talks. Mitchell was widely hailed as a strong choice for
mediator and had found significant success mediating negotiations in Northern
Ireland, but a good envoy was unable to save those negotiations from the lack
of vision set forth by the Obama administration (and then Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton). The settlement freeze became the sole issue to litigate, the Israelis
dug in without external pressure, Palestinian confidence bottomed out, and the
entire process fell apart. Serious planning problems and a lack of pressure to
make a deal canceled out entirely a good envoy nomination.

The lack of a final status vision from the Americans is
again apparent in the new round of talks sponsored by John Kerry. A deal will
be reached if the Palestinians have confidence in the viability of the state
they’re going to be offered and the Israelis sense great enough international
pressure on the settlements and have real concerns about Israel’s continued
character as both Jewish and democratic.

Martin Indyk simply cannot provide or hinder what the
parties need to reach a deal. It’s time to give the man a break.

Netanyahu and Abbas alone will determine if the two-state
solution will be reached through negotiations.